From October 23 to 24, the 11th International Symposium on the Grammaticalization of Chinese & the 2nd International Symposium on the Study of Historical Chinese Vocabulary and Grammar was held in Beijing. The event was co-sponsored by the Institute of Linguistics of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University, Beijing Language and Culture University and CNU, organized by the School of Literature of CNU and co-organized by the Commercial Press. More than 100 language scholars from home and abroad attended the event both online and offline. During the two-day event, 8 scholars from home and abroad delivered symposium reports, and 99 scholars delivered group reports.
At the opening ceremony, Lei Xingshan, vice president of CNU, delivered a speech. He stressed that Chinese language and literature was the traditional advantageous discipline of CNU, so CNU would further strengthen its support to Chinese disciplines and promote Chinese disciplines to a higher level in the future. Zhang Bojiang, director of the the Institute of Linguistics of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, reviewed the development of Chinese grammaticalization research and grammaticalization conferences in the past 20 years, pointed out that grammaticalization had activated Chinese grammar research, and predicted the future development of grammaticalization. Cao Wen, dean of the Faculty of Linguistic Sciences of Beijing Language and Culture University, introduced the structure of the faculty and the development of its disciplines. Song Yayun, deputy director of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Peking University, introduced the mission of historical linguistics and themes to be discussed in the symposium.
After the opening ceremony, Professor Wu Fuxiang from Beijing Language and Culture University presided over the first session of conference report. Jiang Shaoyu gave a report titled Some Issues in the Study of the Evolution of Common Words. Mei Guang read a report titled Some Thoughts on Subject-Zhi-Predicate and Subject-Er-Predicate Syntactic Structures. Shen Jianxuan gave a report titled Rethinking Chinese Virtuality, Reality and Grammatization. Sun Chaofen gave a report titled The Echoing Function of Verb Ending Le in Modern Chinese.
During the group report, nearly 100 scholars in 5 groups reported their research results. Their extensive researches covered not only various periods of Chinese history, but also modern Chinese dialects and other types of languages.
Professor Long Haiping from Sun Yat-Sen University presided the second session of conference report. Professor Alain Peyraube from the Institute of East Asian Languages of the French Academy of Sciences read a report titled New Perspectives on the History of Chinese Demonstratives. Professor Bernd Heine from the Institute for African Languages of the University of Cologne in Germany gave a report titled Recent Trends in Work on Grammaticalization. Professor Walter Bisang from the Department of English and Linguistics of the University of Mainz in Germany gave a report titled Grammaticalization from a Quantitative Perspective. Professor Seongha Rhee from the Department of English of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies gave a report titled On the Emergence and Pragmatic Functions of Discourse Markers of Interruption: A Case in Korean.
At the closing ceremony, Professor Yang Yonglong from the Institute of Linguistics of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences delivered the closing speech. Professor Chen Lianjun from Minnan Normal University made a speech as the representative of the organizer of the next international symposium on Chinese grammaticalization, and Professor Long Guofu from Renmin University of China made a speech as the representative of the next international symposium on Chinese historical vocabulary and grammar.
